and the principal concertmaster is Edit Makedonska. As an independent ensemble, the Opera of the National Theatre began its work in 1919. On 11 February 1919, under the leadership of the first music director of the Opera Section of the National Theatre, Stanislav Binički, a conductor, the opera Madam Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini, was performed. The first opera performances were received very favourably, most of them were operas by Italian composers (Gioacchino Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi), while Serbian music was represented by the works of Stevan Hristić (The Sunset), and Petar Konjović (Prince of Zeta). In the ten years 1924 to 1933 Stevan Hristić was the director of the Belgrade Opera. This period marked an expansion of the repertoire and the first tour abroad. Conductors such as Lovro Matačić, Ivan Brezovšek, directors Branko Gavella and were notable in the period between the two wars. Russian singers prevailed in the ensemble, but there were also Serbian singers such as , Melanija Bugarinović and Nikola Cvejić; as well as Bosnian singers such as Bahrija Nuri Hadžić. After the Second World War, conductor Oskar Danon quickly renewed the activities of the Opera as its general manager. Special attention was dedicated to the domestic opera composers. The golden period of the Belgrade Opera saw significant development and international affirmation of the Serbian operatic art. Starting in 1954 with a very successful performance of Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgsky in Switzerland as a part of a concert cycle "Clubhouse", and gramophone recordings of seven major Russian operas for Decca. The Decca series was supported by Gerald Severn, an émigré White Russian. The venue found in the then Yugoslav capital for the first batch of recordings was the cinema in the Dom Kulture ("House of culture") complex, but which could only be used after the last film of the day (around 11 p.m.) so sessions took place at night. Prince Igor and Khovanschina were recorded in February 1955, with Eugene Onegin, Life for the Tsar, Snow Maiden and Queen of Spades in September and October that year, all among the early Decca stereo records. The company's recording of Boris Godunov took place in Zagreb between the other sets of sessions. The culmination of this "golden period" was an outstanding production of Mazeppa by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky on the stage of the Theater des Westens in West Berlin. The most eminent foreign critics pointed out the wholeness of